The modern horror of street photography

Candid street shots meet the eerie gaze of AI

Perhaps you’ve seen street photography, a subgenre of photography encompassing a wide variety of even smaller subgenres. Perhaps you’ve seen black and white pictures of people arguing outside a subway station, photographs from protests or pride events worldwide, or from the recent flood of street portraiture—bland, but admittedly well done. It’s a style of photography also known for its candid twist, a quality that has become precarious in the age of facial recognition AI. 

Facial recognition software companies boast very advanced technology, capable of picking individuals out from backgrounds of photos, even when wearing masks. For example, the software Clearview AI operates by scraping the internet clean of photographs and creating profiles for individuals who appear in these photos. According to their data, there are more photographs analysed by the software than there are people, meaning that each person in the world could have multiple images assigned to them. They are also notoriously shady in how they operate. They scrape social media websites, against their terms and conditions, yet they have never been sued—they have only received cease-and-desist letters. They also have used their software to shut down attempts at journalism, as in the case of author Kashmir Hill. Due to her investigation, Clearview AI blocked Hill’s face from having any results and tried to dissuade users in the police force from talking to her. So far, Clearview AI has been sold for governmental purposes, such as in police units, but that doesn’t feel like much of a comfort in light of their scandals and the frightening potential of policing. For instance, while the RCMP has used Clearview AI in the past, they have been found to be dishonest about how often and in which cases it was used. 

There have always been ethical concerns regarding street and candid photography. While in many jurisdictions, being in public gives consent for filming or photography (although the degree of this permission, as well as permission for publication, differs), there have always been discussions with photographers about the grey areas this art form creates. For instance, what about unhoused people or people in distress? Should special consideration be given to those who can’t necessarily choose to be in public? 

Social media has created a new grey area: the ease of traceability. Facial recognition has supercharged this trend, and in countries and jurisdictions where the right to abortion, freedom of religion, and sexual orientation are at risk, innocent social media posts—including photos from street photographers—may easily be used to incriminate people. In an age where police departments have been unclear about the details of their usage of AI technology, it is unclear what sorts of ‘crimes’ this technology will be used to detect. 

Suddenly, photographers’ aims to highlight and celebrate city life and subcultures may put their subjects at risk. Photographers have this great responsibility to a power they cannot control. 

So what will happen? Unfortunately, there are those photographers who don’t care to change. However, I do think that for most people, there will likely be a drift away from candids that fully expose facial features, and instead, a gravitation towards consensual street portraiture or more anonymous photos. For instance, we might see photos of people walking from behind, hands grabbing ornate door knobs, or hair whipping in the wind, while the person’s identity remains obscure. Even with these modifications, will there now be fewer willing subjects? Events like parades may start to prohibit photography. I suppose it is a comfort that the genuine, unscripted moments of life will still exist on the Internet and in photography books. But, in an increasingly anonymous photographic world, is artistry lost with every hidden face? How much power is there in a face, not only for identification, but for the meaning of art to be more salient?